Freegle Focus: Climate Emergency

Download as a PDF

Local authorities are ideally placed to lead by example in response to the climate emergency.

Will you pledge to work with your local Freegle community on reuse and help scale up your response to the Climate Emergency?

Freegle can help you to:-

• Encourage resilience in your community.
• Reduce tonnages entering the waste stream and the associated costs.
• Increase resource efficiency locally.
• Help to tackle furniture poverty.
• Reduce consumption-based GHG emissions.

What our supporters say:

Cllr Dave Brookes, Cabinet Member for Environment, Lancaster City Council said:

Every local authority should make time to chat to Freegle. In order to deliver a meaningful and collective response to the climate emergency, it is essential that councils start to engage more with outside organisations

Sponsoring and promoting local Freegle groups is an inexpensive, quick win to boost your council's reuse credentials and get residents engaged.

Freegle is:

• Free-to-use
• Community-led
• Providing local reuse data to councils

Freegle is the UK's biggest and friendliest FREE online reuse network.

In operation since 2009, Freegle has 3.9 million members. Each year Freegle diverts 15,000 tonnes into reuse, creating £10.7m of social & economic benefit, preventing 7, 700 tonnes of GHG emissions*

Freegle is a charity, we have communities operating all over the UK and we are run almost entirely by volunteers.

Ambitious targets require urgent action. Engaging with Freegle and encouraging more reuse in your community will help your local authority to:-

• Accomplish your Climate Emergency goals.
• Decrease consumption-based GHG emissions - we can help you to measure this!
• Create a sustainable circular economy.
• Reduce tonnages sent for disposal - data available from Freegle.
• Reduce collection & disposal costs for local authorities and residents.
• Improve resource efficiency
• Reduce furniture poverty

Sponsor your local Freegle communities.

1. Access local data on reuse, receive tailored support for your council and join the growing list of councils who already work with Freegle. Find out more
2. Stay in the reuse loop. Sign up to receive our free, quick read e-newsletter for local authorities - Freegle Bites . It's packed with info, advice & tools to help you increase engagement.
3. Spread the reuse message. Freegle's engaging social media posts get lots of attention and are very shareable! Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and LinkedIn .
4. Find your local Freegle Communities. Find them , list them on your website, celebrate them, shout about the great reuse they are already doing.
5. View the reuse stats for your area. Find out how many tonnes have been reused, the GHG emission and financial savings. Get your stats .

CASE STUDY: Freegle & Essex County Council working together in partnership

Headline stats:

There are 20 Freegle Communities in Essex with 72 000 members In a recent twelve month period 14,000 individual items were recorded as reused by Essex Freegle communities, equating to 320 tonnes. As a result, 163 tonnes of CO2 were saved £228,000 of social and economic benefit was generated.

View the full Freegle & Essex CC case study .

Freegle User Stories

Extra furniture to accommodate foster children:

I received this beautiful sofa from a lovely gentleman who had it in his garage. It used to be his mums and he had no use for it. He listed it on here and I am so pleased it is exactly what I was looking for. I love to have second hand stuff that is totally useable and often better quality than I could afford new.” From Crawley Freegle

Freegle makes the hassle of restarting my life just a bit easier:

When I was a teenager I used to go the the tipping sites and recover stuff. I even learnt electronics so I could fix TV's and radios I found. Most of the time they just needed a fuse that would back then cost a few pennies. I love the new drive and volume of people trying to reduce the waste we produce, the restarters, recyclers, self producers, crafters, up-cyclers, the more the better for us all and nature. But right now its more poignant because after being homeless for a long while I've just got a home again, and being able to collect the things I need just makes the hassle of restarting my life just a bit easier." From Royal Borough of Greenwich Freegle

More Freegle user stories